Lonnie White, Former USC Football Player: “I took illegal money”

Former USC football player Lonnie White recently stated that he accepted$14,000 in illegal payments during his four-year career in the 1980s at Southern California, mostly by selling game tickets allotted to scholarship players.

White made these comments via The Daily, which is wan online publication. He was a sports writer at the Los Angeles Times from 1987 to 2008 and apparently felt the need to get back in the game.

White wrote.

“To this day, it’s something I’m ashamed about. Rent was overdue, and my household bills were delinquent. I needed the money to live. So accepting the $14,000 in different forms of ‘benefits’ over my college years three decades ago was an act of survival… Even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, it seemed like everyone I knew who played college football enjoyed some type of extra benefits as a player,”

Rough timing for this admission considering the recent findings of the NCAA regarding USC and pay for play schemes.